The tiniest of tykes at Pumpkinville on Saturday plastered their pumpkins with paint so thick it might not dry until Halloween is over.

But others, more careful with their craft, made a concerted effort to bring their gourds to life.

Left: Kaitlyn Zabrocki, 4, of Edmond, plasters her pumpkin with white and yellow paint while her mom, Amanda, looks on Saturday at the Myriad Botanical Gardens. Photos by Zeke Campfield, The Oklahoman

“It's got a green nose so it looks like it's sick,” explained Alisabeth Covey, 9, as she worked to glue a spider made of pipe cleaners to the head of her happy pumpkin masterpiece.

About the size of a basketball, it had blue eyes, a pink mouth, and several shiny jewels spotting its face. A mop of leaves made a pony tail on the pumpkin's stem.

“I looked around at people's because at first I didn't have an idea, but I saw some people doing smiley faces so I thought I would do that,” she said. “I'm inspired by my art teacher — she says you have to color all the peek-a-boos; if you color the sky, even the small parts that are white you have to color them in,” Alisabeth said.

Preston Covey said he brought Alisabeth from Moore to downtown Oklahoma City for a father-daughter Saturday in what attendees deemed was perfect pumpkin-painting weather.

Covey said he and Alisabeth checked out spiders and other creepy critters in the Crystal Bridge Tropical Conservatory earlier that morning.

“It's good for both of us, and the Botanical Gardens were cool,” he said. “It's adult entertainment, but also something fun for the kids, too.”

On the sidewalk around the corner, David Holland, a self-proclaimed master pumpkin carver, taught older kids and adults how to create more intricate carving designs for their pumpkins, including Frankenstein and Rumble, the Oklahoma City Thunder mascot.

“Patience, that's the trick,” he explained as Sierra Berry, 15, of Lawton, labored over her carving project. “And let the saw do the work for you, that's the other.”

But for the 300-plus adults and kids who had showed by noon Saturday, pumpkin painting was the hot attraction.

“Now what color's missing from the table?” Kaitlyn Zabrocki, 4, asked her mom, Amanda, after finishing an initial layer of yellow and white at the painting booth.

The Edmond girl glanced at the tubes of primary colors on the table before her.